The organization is accused of using social media accounts impersonating US users to polarize the US electorate and influence the attitudes and voting behavior of ordinary Americans during the 2016 US election campaign. The Internet Research Agency’s alleged efforts to undermine US democracy are now widely documented by the news media 4, US government investigators 3, 5, and researchers 6, 7, 8. An example of such a foreign intervention was the one conducted during the 2016 US election campaign by the Internet Research Agency, an organization closely linked to the Russian government 3. A number of high-profile cases have since suggested that some governments are using social media to undermine the social movements that challenge their domestic power, and to intervene in the democratic elections of their foreign adversaries 2. Governments soon recognized the collective action potential of social media, and responded by developing strategies to use these platforms for their own domestic and foreign policy goals. Yet the initial optimism that surrounded the democratizing potential of social media was short-lived. When the major social media platforms first emerged in the mid-2000s, they were credited with providing essential collective action tools for democratic activists and with spurring several high-profile social movements worldwide (e.g., Iran’s Green Wave movement, the Arab Spring, Occupy Wall Street) 1. The results have implications for understanding the limits of election interference campaigns on social media. Finally, we find no evidence of a meaningful relationship between exposure to the Russian foreign influence campaign and changes in attitudes, polarization, or voting behavior. Third, exposure to the Russian influence campaign was eclipsed by content from domestic news media and politicians. Second, exposure was concentrated among users who strongly identified as Republicans. We demonstrate, first, that exposure to Russian disinformation accounts was heavily concentrated: only 1% of users accounted for 70% of exposures. Using longitudinal survey data from US respondents linked to their Twitter feeds, we quantify the relationship between exposure to the Russian foreign influence campaign and attitudes and voting behavior in the 2016 US election. Yet data have been unavailable to investigate links between exposure to foreign influence campaigns and political behavior. There is widespread concern that foreign actors are using social media to interfere in elections worldwide.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |